Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been removed. Cusping is present on all sides.
Preparatory layers The triple ground extends up to the current edges of the canvas. The first, brick-red layer consists mostly of fine red pigment particles with a small amount of black, transparent and coarse white pigment particles. The second, light pink layer contains fine and coarse white pigment particles with an addition of red, black and fine earth pigment particles. The third, whitish-pink layer has a similar composition but with slightly more white pigment.
Underdrawing Infrared reflectography and infrared photography revealed sketchy lines of underdrawing in a dry medium describing the face, beard and collar.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the current edges of the canvas. The background was applied in two layers. The sitter was left in reserve in the initial, light brown layer. The face was first indicated with translucent browns and then carefully built up from dark to light, leaving the underpaint partially uncovered around the nose. The hand was reserved in the coat, which consists of a grey layer with dark brushstrokes placed wet in wet on top to indicate the folds and shaded areas. Horizontal lines, incised into the wet paint to position the pattern, were left exposed in the final painting. The design was completed by placing black zigzag lines and small triangles. The collar was constructed on top of a light grey underlayer by adding white highlights and thin, dark paint to define the lit and shaded areas of the folds. After the second layer of the background, consisting of a thin, translucent dark brown glaze, had been applied the sitter’s contours were slightly adjusted, sometimes continuing over the finished background. The paint surface is smooth overall, with impasted brushstrokes in the face, collar and highlights.
Anna Krekeler, 2024

A. Krekeler et al., ‘Consistent Choices: A Technical Study of Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck’s Portraits in the Rijksmuseum’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 62 (2014), pp. 2-23

Fair. There is a small, round deformation in the canvas with some paint loss in the centre of the bottom edge. A scratch of approx. 3 cm runs through the varnish and paint layers to the right of the sitter and there is a discoloured retouching on his forehead. The thick varnish has severely yellowed and saturates poorly.

…; sale, Maurits Cornelis van Hall (1768-1858) et al., Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 27 April 1858, no. 131 (‘Portret van den Haarlemschen Burgemeester Kies’), fl. 29, to the museum, with 8 other portraits¹¹NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 38, p. 187 (21 April 1858); NHA, ARM, IS, inv. 26, no. 93 (23 April 1858, no. 66); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 38, pp. 187-88 (29 April 1858), 192 (19 August 1858).

Object number: SK-A-380

This is one of the earliest of Johannes Verspronck’s paintings in the Rijksmuseum, all of which date from the 1640s or early 1650s. It was acquired with eight other portraits at the Van Hall auction in 1858, where it was presented as a likeness of the Haarlem burgomaster Pieter Jansz Kies (c. 1536-1597). That identification was soon abandoned, since Kies died before Verspronck was born;⁴⁴The Rijksmuseum also has an authentic portrait of him painted in 1596 by Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (SK-A-1241). doubt was already being cast in the earliest museum catalogue to list the picture.⁵⁵P.L. Dubourcq, Beschrijving der schilderijen op ’s Rijks Museum te Amsterdam met fac simile der naamteekens, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1859, p. 136. In 1880 the sitter was called Pieter Jacobsz Schout for the first time,⁶⁶J.W. Kaiser, Beschrijving der schilderijen van het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, met historische aanteekeningen en facsimilés der naamteekens, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1880, p. 325, no. 379. which was probably inspired by a print by the Haarlem engraver Cornelis van Noorde (1731-1795), or by one of the preliminary drawings for it.⁷⁷There is a drawing after the entire painting (Rijksmuseum, RP-T-00-1775) and a 1777 design for an engraving of Schout’s head alone (NHA, inv. no. PV IX 35). According to annotations on both sheets, Van Noorde had read the date on Verspronck’s portrait as 1648 and 1647 respectively.

Pieter Jacobsz Schout, or Schoudt, was a member of a Haarlem regent family who served as burgomaster between 1608 and 1612. He also occupied high offices in the local civic guard. He was dismissed as a city councillor in 1618, when Prince Maurits purged the Haarlem authorities of those with Remonstrant sympathies, which put an end to his career in public service.⁸⁸R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, p. 30. Verspronck portrayed him at the age of 71. He is in a rather formal pose at hip length, turned to the left and holding a hat. At one time there may have been a companion piece, because Schout’s wife, Anna Mattheusdr Steyn, was still alive in 1641, the year in which the present likeness was made.⁹⁹R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, p. 30. It is fairly certain that Verspronck also painted Schout’s son, Matthijs Pietersz (1611-1656) and his wife. Those works, which, going by what we know about Verspronck’s oeuvre, would have been pendants, do not appear to have survived, but their existence is documented by a drawn copy by Cornelis van Noorde that was auctioned in 1796.¹⁰¹⁰Sale, Willem Oudenaarden and Cornelis van Noorde, Haarlem (V. van de Vinne), 1 November 1796, no. 430. R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, p. 84. The originals may be among the many portraits of unidentified couples from the early 1640s, such as the pendants dated 1640 in Rome, Gallerie nazionali di arte antica – Galleria Corsini, of which there were known drawings by Van Noorde; see ibid., pp. 79, 80, 152-53 (ills.). An earlier portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Schout can be seen in a civic guard piece of 1619 by Frans Pietersz de Grebber.¹¹¹¹Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in P. Biesboer et al., Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, p. 462; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, p. 30.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck: Leven en werken van een Haarlems portretschilder uit de 17de eeuw, Haarlem 1979, pp. 45, 84-85, no. 30; R.E.O. Ekkart, Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue, Amsterdam 2009, pp. 29-30

1859, pp. 135-36, no. 293 II (as Portrait of Burgomaster Kies ?); 1880, p. 325, no. 379; 1887, p. 180, no. 1544; 1903, p. 283, no. 2536; 1934, p. 300, no. 2536; 1976, p. 575, no. A 380; 1992, p. 90, no. A 380

Gerdien Wuestman, 2024, 'Johannes Verspronck, Portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Schout (1570-1645), 1641', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026868